In general, I would say that Kaiser's "If you really want something done, you have to advocate hard for it" style of health care sucks pretty hard. The lack of returned calls. Staff giving bad information (saying they don't do a procedure when they, in fact, do a procedure)...etc. etc. Is this basically the state of healthcare today?
yes
- Eric - Final Countdown
see Mayo Clinic for what the model can be even in todays money or die world
- WarLord
The biggest local medical insurance company here may be a lot more expensive than Kaiser, but I've learned through other people to prefer that since you can choose to visit non-Kaiser facilities. Lots of horror stories growing up. It's unfortunate that a good chunk of the jobs available here in Hawaii are contractor jobs from the mainland and military and they only go with Kaiser.
- Arlan K.
I'm sorry you're having trouble. My parents switched to Kaiser a year or two ago and like it very much. They were also very good to us via my Grandfather, who used them for over a decade (possibly much, much more)
- Soup in a TARDIS
Seeing as it was the first for-profit medical institution, that doesn't surprise me at all.
- Georgia
That's also my biggest complaint with Kaiser. There's nobody their who cares if you get better or not, are in pain or not. Running a test etc they are great. Making you better when it's a hard to solve problem, not good at all. Complete suckage actually.
- Todd Hoff
It is pretty close to what a lot of people experience. (Weirdly, I'm part of Kaiser, but only because they bought my co-op, and left it partially intact rather than converting it, which means my experience has been vastly different.)
- Jennifer Dittrich
I'm with Kaiser and I haven't found this to be entirely the case. Then again, Kaiser Oakland is great.
- kendrak
Arlan, Kaiser will readily refer members to other facilities for things that Kaiser does not specialize in. My stepmom got stents put in by non-Kaiser doctors and my dad's kidney transplants were done by UCSF, which has definite experts in the field. My problem isn't with the level of care that you get from Kaiser, it's that you have to deal with a cellphone provider level of customer service to get it.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble